1980 Paris synagogue bombing

Last updated
1980 Paris synagogue bombing
Union liberale israelite de France, 24 rue Copernic, Paris 16.jpg
The synagogue in 2010
Location Rue Copernic synagogue, Paris, France
Coordinates 48°52′10″N2°17′20″E / 48.86934°N 2.28885°E / 48.86934; 2.28885
Date3 October 1980 (1980-10-03)
18:38 (CET)
TargetJewish worshippers
Attack type
Bombing
Deaths4
Injured46
Perpetrators Hassan Diab
Motive Antisemitism

On 3 October 1980, a bomb exploded outside the Rue Copernic synagogue in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France, during Shabbat services. Approximately 320 worshippers were inside the synagogue when the bomb went off outside, killing four people and wounding 46. It was the first deadly attack against Jews in France since the end of the Second World War.

Contents

French investigators later attributed the attack to the Palestinian militant group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. At the request of French authorities, Canadian police arrested university instructor Hassan Diab, a Canadian of Lebanese descent, in 2008, 28 years after the attack. After a protracted extradition fight, Diab was extradited to France and formally charged in 2014. He was allowed to return to Canada in 2018 after the charges against him were dropped.

In 2021, terrorism charges against him were reinstated. Diab was convicted in absentia for the attack at a trial in Paris in April 2023.

Attack

At 18:38 CET on Friday, 3 October 1980, a bomb exploded outside Rue Copernic synagogue, a Reform synagogue, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France. Because it was Friday evening and the beginning of Jewish holiday Shabbat, the synagogue was full of approximately 320 [1] worshippers. [2] Attendees were also celebrating the synagogue's five Bar Mitzvahs that weekend. According to the police investigation, saddlebags packed with 10 kilograms of explosives were left on a Suzuki motorcycle parked in front of the synagogue. The synagogue's glass roof collapsed on the worshipers, and one of the synagogue's doors was blown through. [3]

Victims

The commemorative plaque fixed onto the synagogue notes: "In memory of Jean Michel Barbe, Philippe Bouissou, Hilario Lopez Fernandez, Aliza Shagrir killed during the odious attack committed against this synagogue on 3 October 1980. Plaque Attentat de la rue Copernic, Paris 16.jpg
The commemorative plaque fixed onto the synagogue notes: "In memory of Jean Michel Barbé, Philippe Bouissou, Hilario Lopez Fernandez, Aliza Shagrir killed during the odious attack committed against this synagogue on 3 October 1980.

Four people were killed in the blast. Philippe Bouissou (22 years old), passing by on his motorbike, was killed immediately. Aliza Shagrir (44 years old), an Israeli TV presenter on holiday, was killed while she was walking on the pavement outside. Jean-Michel Barbé, a driver, was parked outside the synagogue and was waiting for clients inside. Hilario Lopes-Fernandez, a Portuguese housekeeper of the Victor Hugo Hotel, located almost in front of the temple, was seriously wounded and died of her injuries two days later. Forty-six people were also wounded. [3]

According to investigators, the bomb had been set to detonate after prayers concluded and as worshippers were leaving the building. However, the service had started several minutes late and therefore there were few people in the vicinity of the bomb. [3]

Reactions

Public reaction

After the attack, there was widespread criticism of the French government. For three days after the attacks, tens of thousands of people, including Jews, non-Jews, trade unionists, politicians, marched along the Champs-Élysées and in the vicinity of the Élysée Palace in protest of the attack. The night of the bombing, demonstrations began at the Charles de Gaulle–Étoile metro station. The next morning, over 10,000 people gathered at the synagogue in support. Simone Veil, then President of the European Parliament, participated in the solidarity marches, but the crowd's anger at her perceived support for the government forced riot police to take her to safety. [4]

In solidarity with the Jewish community, France's two major trade unions, the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) and the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (CFDT), called for a nationwide strike on 7 October. [4]

Jewish community's response

The Jewish community's immediate reaction was one of anger. Many Jews blamed the government of President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, which they perceived as too soft on Palestinian terrorists and far-right extremism. [5] On 5 October, Jewish demonstrators attempted to storm the Élysée Palace and the Ministry of the Interior, clashing with riot police. Passers-by with an apparent neo-Nazi appearance were harassed or beaten. [4]

Mayor of New York City Ed Koch, who was Jewish, accused Giscard of "delivering the Jews to the PLO", similar to how Vichy France delivered Jews to the Nazis. [6]

Law enforcement response

The government subsequently announced a series of measures to protect Jewish institutions. Two hundred police cars and three companies of riot police (a total of 600 police) were assigned to protect the Jewish community across France. In Paris, riot police were stationed in front of every synagogue. In Strasbourg, authorities closed the street in front of the city's synagogue to vehicular traffic. [4]

Raymond Barre controversy

The night of the attack, Prime Minister Raymond Barre said to French television station TF1: "This odious attack was aimed at hitting Israelites going to the synagogue but hit innocent French people who crossed the Copernic street". His words of 8 October in the National Assembly, assuring his "Jewish compatriots" of the "sympathy of the all nation", failed to assuage. Just before his death in August 2007, Raymond Barre blamed the controversy about his statement on the "Jewish lobby". [7]

Effect on 1981 presidential election

Long-simmering dissatisfaction from the increasingly vocal 700,000-person Jewish community in France about the anti-Israel tilt of Giscard's policies and his government's tepid response to the synagogue bombing may have contributed to his loss in the 1981 presidential election. Giscard won a majority of the Jewish vote for his successful campaign in the 1974 presidential election, which he won by only 340,000 votes. But a few months after his election, he dispatched his Foreign Minister Jean Sauvagnargues to meet with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat. Giscard also approved the opening of a PLO bureau in Paris. In 1977, his government approved the release of Palestinian militant Abu Daoud, the mastermind of the 1972 Munich massacre. [8]

In the 1981 election, a majority of Jewish voters went for François Mitterrand of the Socialist Party, who won in the second round.

Responsibility

A number of potential suspects were investigated, including Spanish neo-Nazis, Libyans, Palestinian nationalists, and the French extreme right. [5] [9]

False neo-Nazi claim

Within hours of the bombing, a man claiming to represent the neo-Nazi Federation of National and European Action (FANE) called the Agence France-Presse to claim responsibility on behalf of the FANE. However, Jean-Yves Pellay, a 25-year-old who claimed to be Jewish, later confessed to making the claim in order to "get the neo-Nazis in trouble with the law". [5]

One year after the bombing, investigators had failed to identify any solid perpetrators. [5] Police initially sought two Cypriot suspects, Alexander Panadryu and Joseph Mathias, but the investigation did not progress at the time. It was alleged that five Palestinians had travelled to France under forged Cypriot passports. [9]

French investigators later attributed the attack to the Palestinian militant group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. [1]

Hassan Diab

Arrest and extradition

Twenty-eight years after the bombing, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested university professor Hassan Diab, a Canadian of Lebanese descent, based on a request from French authorities. [10] Diab reportedly matched a photofit of the suspected bomber. [7] He was formally charged with the attack in November 2014, after his extradition from Canada. [3]

Groups such as Amnesty International, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, and Canadian Civil Liberties Association claim the existence of university records that allegedly proved that Diab was in Beirut, Lebanon, at the time of the bombing. [11]

A French court dismissed the charges against Diab on 12 January 2018 due to insufficient evidence, and he returned to Canada on 15 January. However, on 19 May 2021, the Court of Cassation upheld the earlier decision, directing Diab to stand trial in France. [10]

Trial

Diab's trial began in Paris on 6 April 2023. The trial was held in absentia; Diab remained in Canada after his release in 2018 and did not return to France for the trial. [3]

After a 3-week trial, Diab was convicted of the murders on 21 April. The Cour d'assises sentenced him to life imprisonment. The prosecution's case rested largely on intelligence reports and a passport allegedly used by Diab to travel to Spain, from where the PFLP was said to have launched the attack. The prosecution argued that the passport contained entry and exit stamps from Spain around the time of the attack. Diab's defence insisted that there was no material evidence linking him to the crime. Despite the verdict, it is unclear whether Canada will extradite Diab. [12] [13]

Reactions

The leader of France's Jewish umbrella organisation, the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions juives de France, welcomed the conviction. [14]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewish Defense League</span> Jewish far-right organization

The Jewish Defense League (JDL) is a far-right religious and political organization in the United States and Canada. Its stated goal is to "protect Jews from antisemitism by whatever means necessary"; it has been classified as "right-wing terrorist group" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) since 2001, and is also designated as hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. According to the FBI, the JDL has been involved in plotting and executing acts of terrorism within the United States. Most terrorist watch groups classify the group as inactive as of 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alois Brunner</span> Austrian SS officer and war criminal

Alois Brunner was an Austrian officer who held the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) during World War II. Brunner played a significant role in the implementation of the Holocaust through rounding up and deporting Jews in occupied Austria, Greece, Macedonia, France, and Slovakia. He was known as Final Solution architect Adolf Eichmann's right-hand man.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raymond Barre</span> French politician and economist (1924–2007)

Raymond Octave Joseph Barre was a French politician and economist. He was a Vice President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs under three presidents. He later served as Prime Minister under Valéry Giscard d'Estaing from 1976 until 1981. As a candidate for the presidency in 1988, he came in third and was eliminated in the first round. He was born in Saint-Denis, on the French island of Réunion, and then still a colony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">B'nai Brith Canada</span>

B'nai Brith Canada is a Canadian Jewish service organization and advocacy group. It is the Canadian chapter of B'nai B'rith International and has offices in Toronto, Winnipeg, Montreal, and Vancouver.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex Odeh</span> Palestinian activist

Alexander Michel Odeh was a Palestinian activist. Odeh was serving as West Coast regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) when he was assassinated in a bombing in Santa Ana, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Union Libérale Israélite de France</span> Reform synagogue in Paris, France

The Union Libérale Israélite de France, commonly referred to as the rue Copernic synagogue, is a Reform Jewish congregation and synagogue, located in the XVIe arrondissement of Paris, France. Inaugurated on 1 December 1907, it is the oldest Reform synagogue in France.

Hassan N. Diab is a Lebanese-Canadian citizen and sociologist who has been convicted in absentia of having planted the explosive that caused the 1980 Paris synagogue bombing. He has always countered the accusation by insisting he was in Lebanon, and has witnesses and evidence to prove it, at the time of the event.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1981 Antwerp synagogue bombing</span> Truck bombing in Belgium

On 20 October 1981, a truck bomb exploded outside a Portuguese Jewish synagogue in the centre of Antwerp, Belgium, in the diamond district of Antwerp. The explosion took place shortly after 9:00 AM on a Tuesday morning, a few minutes before Simchat Torah religious services were to begin. Three people were killed and 106 wounded.

Antisemitic incidents escalated worldwide in frequency and intensity during the Gaza War, and were widely considered to be a wave of reprisal attacks in response to the conflict.

Antisemitism in Canada is the manifestation of hostility, prejudice or discrimination against the Canadian Jewish people or Judaism as a religious, ethnic or racial group. This form of racism has affected Jews since Canada's Jewish community was established in the 18th century.

The Menarsha synagogue attack took place on 5 August 1949 in the Jewish quarter of Damascus, Syria. The grenade attack claimed the lives of 12 civilians and injured about 30. Most of the victims were children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chez Jo Goldenberg restaurant attack</span> 1982 terrorist attack on a restaurant in Paris, France

The Chez Jo Goldenberg restaurant attack was a bombing and shooting attack on a Jewish restaurant in the Parisien district of Marais on 9 August 1982 carried out by the Palestinian militant Abu Nidal Organization, a group that splintered from PLO. Two assailants threw a grenade into the dining room, then rushed in and fired machine guns. They killed six people, including two Americans, Ann Van Zanten, a curator at the Chicago Historical Society, and Grace Cutler, and injured 22 others. Mrs. Van Zanten's husband, David, an art history professor at Northwestern University, was among the injured. BusinessWeek later said it was "the heaviest toll suffered by Jews in France since World War II." The restaurant closed in 2006 and former owner Jo Goldenberg died in 2014.

Paris attacks may refer to the following:

Belgium is a European country with a Jewish population of approximately 35,000 out of a total population of about 11.4 million. It is among the countries experiencing an increase in both antisemitic attitudes and in physical attacks on Jews.

On 30 March 1985, a bomb exploded inside the Rivoli Beaubourg cinema in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, France, where an annual Jewish film festival was being held. At the time the German film Eichmann und das Dritte Reich (1961) about the Holocaust was being screened.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1941 Paris synagogue attacks</span> Synagogue attack

On the night of October 2–3, 1941, six synagogues were attacked in Paris and damaged by explosive devices places by their doors between 2:05 and 4:05 am. The perpetrators were identified but not arrested.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antisemitism in France</span>

Antisemitism in France is the expression through words or actions of an ideology of hatred of Jews on French soil.

Following the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and the outbreak of the Israel–Hamas war, there has been a surge of antisemitism around the world. Israeli Immigration Minister Ofir Sofer has stated that Israel is bracing to expect a large wave of Jews migrating to Israel due to the rising antisemitism around the world.

References

  1. 1 2 Vaux-Montagny, Nicolas (2023-04-03). "Lone suspect in 1980 Paris synagogue bombing goes on trial". Associated Press . Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  2. ↑ "Lebanese-Canadian charged over 1980 Paris synagogue bombing". Times of Israel. AFP. 15 November 2014. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "4 decades later, new trial of alleged 1980 Paris synagogue bomber offers victims opportunity for closure". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 2023-04-06. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Tens of Thousands of Jews, Non-Jews March to Protest Synagogue Bombing in Paris". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 1980-10-06. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "A Year Later: Hundreds Attend Memorial for Victims of Rue Copernic Bombing". jta.org. Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Retrieved April 6, 2023.
  6. ↑ "Koch Blasts Giscard D'estaing". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 1981-10-08. Retrieved 7 April 2023.
  7. 1 2 Willsher, Kim (2023-04-03). "Lebanese-Canadian professor tried for 1980 Paris synagogue attack". Guardian . Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  8. ↑ "Behind the Headlines the Jewish Electorate in France's Presidential Campaign". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 1981-04-07. Retrieved 7 April 2023.
  9. 1 2 "News Weekly Claims Palestinian Extremists. Not Neo-nazi Group, Bombed Rue Copernic Synagogue". jta.org. Jewish Telegraphic Agency . Retrieved January 26, 2023.
  10. 1 2 Bronskill, Jim (2021-05-19). "Ottawa professor Hassan Diab must stand trial in Paris bombing: French court". CTV Television Network . Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  11. ↑ "Hassan Diab Case: New exculpatory evidence and Amnesty International Intervention". Amnesty International. 20 June 2017. Retrieved 26 June 2017.
  12. ↑ Méheut, Constant (2023-04-21). "43 Years After Paris Synagogue Bombing, Canadian Man Is Found Guilty". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2023-04-21.
  13. ↑ "Attentat de la rue Copernic : l'unique accusé, Hassan Diab, condamné en son absence à la réclusion criminelle à perpétuité". Le Monde.fr (in French). 2023-04-21. Retrieved 2023-04-21.
  14. ↑ "Canadian professor convicted in 1980 Paris synagogue bombing". Associated Press. Retrieved 21 April 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.